Samsung’s big push for 2013: content, corporates

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics, the global leader in consumer smartphones, is planning two major thrusts in 2013: bulking up mobile content and moving faster into the corporate market dominated by Research in Motion.

The South Korean electronics company is investing in devices that enterprise users like corporations will endorse, with a higher level of security and reliability than general users need. In doing so, Samsung is capitalizing on doubts about the longevity of the BlackBerry as its Canadian maker struggles to revive growth.

Samsung’s corporate market ambitions have advanced as the Galaxy SIII, its popular flagship smartphone, won the requisite security certifications from companies, said Kevin Packingham, chief product officer for Samsung Mobile USA.

As RIM prepares to launch its next-generation BlackBerry 10 this quarter, the company’s future remains shaky. Corporate technology officers have begun to explore other smartphones, such as those by Apple Inc or Samsung.

“The enterprise space has suddenly become wide open. The RIM problems certainly fueled a lot of what the CIOs are going through, which is they want to get away from a lot of the proprietary solutions,” Packingham said in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “They want something that integrates what they are doing with their IT systems. Samsung is investing in that area.”

“It’s been a focus for a long time but the products have evolved now that we can really take advantage of that,” he added. “We knew we had to build more tech devices to successfully enter the enterprise market. What really turned that needle was that we had the power of the GS3.”

Samsung in 2012 overtook Apple as the world’s largest maker of smartphones, with a vastly larger selection of cellphones that attacked different price points and proved popular in emerging markets.

German business software maker SAP provides employees with Samsung’s Galaxy S III, the larger Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Tab, SAP Chief Information Officer Oliver Bussmann said in an interview.

“The one clear trend in enterprise is the shift away from one device to multiple devices,” said Bussman, who makes 10 devices available to SAP employees for official use. The list includes Apple’s iPhone and iPad, Nokia Lumia and RIM’s Blackberry.

“Because of the fragmentation of the Android software, we decided to go with just one Android company and we went with Samsung,” he added.

Now, the Korean hardware specialist is beefing up its software – an area in which it has lagged arch-enemy Apple, which revolutionized the mobile phone from 2007 with its content-rich, developer-led iPhone ecosystem.

Packingham sees an area ripe for innovation – combining the mobile phone with Samsung’s strength, the TV, which has barely evolved in the past decade.

Still, the U.S.-based executive remained cagey about Samsung’s plans for content and enterprise.

“You are going to see from content services, we’ll start to integrate what’s happening on the big screen, what’s happening on the tablet,” he said.

“We know now that people like to explore content that they are watching on TV while they have a tablet in their lap, and that’s going to be a big theme for this year.”

(Editing by Richard Chang)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Kangaroo Gets Loose at Melbourne Airport

People Pets

01/08/2013 at 08:00 PM EST

Travelers passing through Australia's Melbourne Airport on Monday may have been greeted by an unexpected baggage handler.

At around 7 a.m., a 3-year-old eastern gray kangaroo was spotted in the airport's parking garage, where it hopped around for almost two hours, giving security officers the slip in the process.

Wildlife officer Manfred Zabinskas was then called in to catch the young animal, who was tranquilized in order to be transported to safety. Analyzing the critter, Zabinskas noted he had been away from his natural habitat for some time, and that the romp through the parking garage had done some damage to his feet. Prior to being re-released into the wild, the kangaroo will be looked at by a veterinarian.

This is the second time a kangaroo has paid a visit to the Melbourne Airport. Last October, another marsupial made its way up to the fifth floor of the parking garage before being spotted.

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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Wall Street edges off five-year high, awaits earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks lost ground on Monday, as investors drew back from recent gains that lifted the S&P 500 to a five-year high, in anticipation of sluggish growth in corporate profits.

Shares of financial companies dipped after a group of major U.S. banks agreed to pay a total of $8.5 billion to end a government inquiry into faulty mortgage foreclosures. The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, was down 0.3 percent.

Other sectors were hit as well, most notably energy and utilities. The S&P 500 energy sector index <.gspe> fell 0.8 percent and the utilities sector <.gspu> was off 1.1 percent.

The day's decline came a session after the S&P 500 finished at a five-year high, boosted by a budget deal and strong economic data. The S&P 500 rose 4.6 percent last week, the best weekly gain in more than a year.

"It's a little bit of taking some risk off the table ahead of profit season, you're not going to see anything all that great" on earnings, said Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.

Earnings are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results, and analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Fourth-quarter earnings growth is expected to come in at 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Aluminum company Alcoa Inc begins the reporting season by announcing its results after Tuesday's market close. Alcoa shares fell 1.7 percent at $9.10.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 50.92 points, or 0.38 percent, to 13,384.29. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 4.58 points, or 0.31 percent, to 1,461.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 2.84 points, or 0.09 percent, to 3,098.81.

Ten mortgage servicers - including Bank of America , Citigroup , JPMorgan , and Wells Fargo - agreed on Monday to pay $8.5 billion to end a case-by-case review of foreclosures required by U.S. regulators.

In a separate case, Bank of America also announced roughly $11.6 billion of settlements with mortgage finance company Fannie Mae and a $1.8 billion sale of collection rights on home loans.

The bank also entered into agreements with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management to sell about $306 billion of residential mortgage servicing rights.

Bank of America shares lost 0.2 percent at $12.09 while Nationstar Mortgage Holdings jumped 16.8 percent to $38.83.

Citigroup shares were up 0.09 percent to $42.47, and Wells Fargo shares fell 0.5 percent to $34.77.

"The financials probably have the wind behind them now with a lot of the regulations coming out ... the market has to absorb a lot of the gains, and for that reason there's a pullback from this level," said Warren West, principal at Greentree Brokerage Services in Philadelphia.

Shares of U.S. jet maker Boeing Co dropped 2 percent after a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft with no passengers on board caught fire at Boston's Logan International Airport on Monday morning.

Amazon.com shares hit their highest price ever at $269.22 after Morgan Stanley raised is rating on the stock. Shares were up 3.6 percent at $268.46.

Video-streaming service Netflix Inc shares gained 3.4 percent to $99.20 after it said it will carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner's Warner Bros Television.

Walt Disney Co stock fell 2.3 percent to $50.97. The company started an internal cost-cutting review several weeks ago that may include layoffs at its studio and other units, three people with knowledge of the effort told Reuters.

Volume was lower than average, as 4.78 billion shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq. This is well below the 2012 average of 6.42 billion per session.

Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,629 to 1,363, while on the Nasdaq decliners beat advancers 1,438 to 1,066.

(Reporting By Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)

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Videos of Chávez Promote Stability During Illness

Meridith Kohut for The New York Times

In Caracas on Saturday, Venezuelans showed support for President Hugo Chávez, who is in Cuba after an operation.

CARACAS, Venezuela — They run around the clock on state television, highly polished videos of President Hugo Chávez hugging children, kissing grandmothers, playing baseball and reciting poetry. As supporters around the world hold up hand-lettered signs that say, “I Am Chávez,” the president’s voice is heard in one of them shouting, “I demand absolute loyalty because I am not me, I am not an individual, I am a people!”

In reality, officials say, Mr. Chávez lies in a Cuban hospital bed, struggling through complications from cancer surgery while his country heads toward a constitutional showdown over his absence.

Mr. Chávez’s fragile health has thrown Venezuela into political uncertainty. After being re-elected in October, he is supposed to be sworn in for the start of his new term on Thursday, but the charismatic leader who has dominated every aspect of government here for 14 years may be too ill to return in time, much less continue in office for the next six years. Top government officials insist that the swearing-in is just a formality. The opposition, meanwhile, says the Constitution requires that Mr. Chávez be present or, in his absence, that a process begin that could lead to new elections.

The government’s television barrage seems intent on reassuring loyalists — and anyone who might raise questions — that Mr. Chávez is still very much the head of the nation. By keeping his image front and center, analysts say, the government can bolster its position as the caretaker of his legacy, mobilize its supporters for the battle over interpreting the Constitution and build momentum for itself in elections should Mr. Chávez die or prove too sick to govern.

“They have combined the mechanisms of left-wing struggle with the best marketing team there is,” said J. J. Rendón, a political consultant who opposes the government.

He compared the saga over Mr. Chávez’s illness to a telenovela, one of the popular Latin American soap operas, with its unexpected plot twists that keep viewers on edge. “They are always prepared for different scenarios,” he said of the government.

During past trips to Cuba for cancer treatment over the last year and a half, Mr. Chávez worked to maintain his customary visibility back home, heading televised cabinet meetings, making phone calls to government-run television programs and posting on Twitter.

But this time is different. He has not been seen or heard from since his surgery on Dec. 11.

To fill the void, the government montages combine elements of campaign ads and music videos, sometimes with the feel of a religious revival broadcast.

They are Mr. Chávez’s greatest hits, showing him on the campaign trail or in scenes from happier times during his many years in office, a nostalgic and emotionally charged way for his supporters to connect with their absent leader. Set to rock, rap or folk music, they mine parallels between Mr. Chávez and his hero, the Venezuelan independence leader Simón Bolívar, and resonate with the religious devotion with which some of his followers regard him.

In one, Mr. Chávez is seen reciting a favorite poem exalting Bolívar. Another shows glowing pictures of Mr. Chávez while choirlike voices sing, “Chávez is the triumphant commander, Chávez is pure and noble love.”

“There is a process of converting Chávez into a myth with religious roots,” said Andrés Cañizalez, a communication professor at the Andrés Bello Catholic University.

The television spots, he said, are part of “a political strategy to keep alive this idea that Chávez is not just a political leader but he’s the father of the country, he’s a patriarch, he’s a figure who protects us, who takes care of everything for us, something more than a president.”

Many of Mr. Chávez’s followers already speak of him in religious terms, as a godlike presence, and the campaign seems intended to feed those perceptions.

María Eugenia Díaz contributed reporting.

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181,354 People on Twitter Think They’re Experts at Twitter

Do you tweet a lot? Do you post everything on Facebook? Do you #hashtag #complete #sentences #like #this? Do you describe yourself, variously, as a social media “maven”, “master”, “guru”, “freak”, “warrior”, “evangelist” or “veteran”? (Yes, a social media veteran. As if Tumblr were a deadly war you narrowly survived.) Well: you’ve got company! There are more than 181,000 such individuals on Twitter, people who adorn their profiles with credentials like “social media freak” and “social media wonk” and “social media authority.”

RELATED: Teens Hacking Their Friends’s Twitter Accounts Is All the Rage

B.L. Ochman at Advertising Age, whose heroic research produced the final tally, first noted the trend three years ago — when she recorded, among other distinctions, 68 “social media stars” and 79 “social media ninjas” on Twitter alone — and has been keeping track ever since. This isn’t just the stuff of legitimate Twitter news-breakers like Anthony DeRosa and Andy Carvin — Ohman provides a helpful breakdown of the terms she looked for — you know, like “social media warrior.” (We’re tempted to argue that such diligence makes Ochman something of a social media warrior herself.) Ochman also warns of using “guru” — a Sanskrit term — to describe oneself:

While a great many of these self-appointed gurus are no doubt taking the title with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the fact remains: a guru is something someone else calls you, not something you call yourself. Scratch that: let’s save “guru” (Sanskrit for “teacher”) for religious figures or at least people with real unique knowledge.

I’d argue, in fact, that “social media” and “guru” should never appear in the same sentence.

Whatever the term, social media seems to be a growth industry: there were only 15,740 “mavens” (or whatever) in 2009 — less than a tenth of those represented today.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Justin Bartha Is Dating Trainer Lia Smith

01/07/2013 at 07:00 PM EST

Lia and Justin in Hawaii New Years Day

Pacific Coast News

Justin Bartha's "mystery woman" is in fact his girlfriend, trainer Lia Smith, a source reveals to PEOPLE.

The pair recently enjoyed a cozy trip to Smith's native Hawaii and were snapped basking in the sun on Maui on New Year's Day, which got people buzzing about her identity.

"They were very cute with each other," says an eyewitness. "They had their arms around each other and were kissing."

The couple also spent time with Smith's parents on Oahu. Bartha, who currently stars on The New Normal, was previously linked to Scarlett Johansson and dated Ashley Olsen for two years before breaking up in 2011.

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Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down

WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.

Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.

"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.

But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.

Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.

The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.

Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.

Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.

But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.

Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.

Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.

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Asian shares slip, Basel ruling supports banks

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asian stocks drifted down on Monday as investors booked profits from a New Year rally that had pushed markets to multi-month highs, although financial stocks gained after global regulators decided to relax draft plans for tough new bank liquidity rules.

Commodity prices mostly held steady, supported by data showing the U.S. economy continuing on a path of slow but steady recovery that propelled Wall Street stocks to a five-year high.

Financial bookmakers called Europe's main share indexes to open flat or slightly lower, while S&P 500 index futures traded in Asia eased 0.2 percent, pointing to a weaker start in New York.

"It just seems like markets are entering a consolidation phase after recent gains and with most markets trading at fresh 12-month highs," said Stan Shamu, market strategist at financial spreadbetting firm IG in Melbourne.

The dollar fell against the yen, coming off a two-and-a-half year peak it had logged against the Japanese currency as investors adjusted to the possibility of more monetary stimulus in 2013 from the Bank of Japan and less from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus>, which had reached its highest level since August 2011 on Thursday, eased 0.1 percent, while Tokyo's Nikkei share average <.n225> retreated after touching a 23-month high in early trade to close down 0.8 percent. <.t/>

CASH BUFFERS

The MSCI benchmark's financial sector sub-index <.miapjfn00pus> firmed after the Basel Committee of banking supervisors agreed on Sunday to give banks four more years and greater flexibility to build up cash buffers so they can use some of their reserves to help struggling economies.

HSBC Holdings Hong Kong shares rose 1 percent, while Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd gained 0.6 percent. <.hk><.ax/>

Shares in Japanese exporters were supported by the trend of a weakening yen, which traded around 87.85 to the dollar, up 0.3 percent on the day, after the U.S. currency rose as far as 88.40 yen, its highest in nearly two-and-a-half years, on Friday.

The dollar posted a gain of around 2.7 percent against the yen last week, its biggest weekly rise in more than a year. Its gains had accelerated after minutes from the Federal Reserve's December meeting showed some policymakers had considered ending the Fed's bond-buying program as early as this year.

By contrast, many investors are now betting that Japan's new government, led by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, will push to weaken the yen and drive through aggressive fiscal stimulus, and pressure the Bank of Japan to do the same on the monetary side.

Although the dollar may pull back against the yen given the speed of its rise over the past month, its uptrend seems likely to remain intact, said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan for UBS in Tokyo.

"My sense is that the market could still head much higher," Maeba said. "I think 90 yen might be reached pretty soon."

The dollar firmed against the euro, which traded around $1.3035.

The U.S. stock benchmark S&P 500 index <.spx> closed at its highest level since December 2007 on Friday after data showed a steady pace of jobs growth and brisk expansion of the services sector in the world's biggest economy.

That offered support to growth-sensitive commodities, with copper little changed just below $8,100 a tonne, while Brent crude oil eased a little to around $111.20.

Spot gold firmed 0.3 percent to around $1,660 an ounce.

(Additional reporting by Masayuki Kitano; Editing by Eric Meijer)

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Education: In Indonesia, Envisioning a Larger Role for Religion at School

Ed Wray for the International Herald Tribune

Annisa Nurul Jannah, 11, left, says science lessons teach her ‘‘a lot.’’

JAKARTA — Annisa Nurul Jannah, 11, was learning about how devices transmit heat, sound and electricity. “I like science because it teaches me a lot,” the sixth grader at Petamburan 04, a school in a working-class part of Jakarta, said about her favorite subject. “I’d be sad if it was removed from school.”

Millions of children in Indonesian elementary schools may no longer have separate science classes starting in June, the beginning of their next school year, if the government approves a curriculum overhaul that would merge science and social studies with other classes so more time can be devoted to religious education.

A draft of the proposal was posted online in November and December for public comment. The government is analyzing the feedback and will meet with a team of experts shortly to develop new lesson plans.

Ibnu Hamid, an Education Ministry spokesman, said feedback showed that people generally agreed with the curriculum changes but were worried that there would not be enough time to train teachers and prepare new books. The comments have not been released to the public, however, and some critics question whether they truly reflect broader opinion.

Officials who back the changes say that more religious instruction is needed because a lack of moral development has led to an increase in violence and vandalism among youths, and that could fuel social unrest and corruption in the future.

“Right now many students don’t have character, tolerance for others, empathy for others,” Musliar Kasim, the deputy minister of education, said in an interview in November. He proposed the changes in September.

He is part of a team of officials, academics and advisers from the office of Vice President Boediono working to streamline the curriculum in 2013.

Mr. Hamid said that the aim was to create a “balance between attitude, skills and knowledge.”

The draft curriculum released to the public in November was light on details. It did not outline how science and social studies would be taught once their dedicated classes were eliminated, or describe how religion and civics would contribute to character building.

Indonesia is a Muslim-majority country with a secular government that recognizes the rights of six different faiths, including Catholicism, Protestantism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism.

Religion is taught to students according to their own faiths, meaning that Muslim students are instructed in Islam, while Christian students study Christianity in separate classes. Reflecting the country’s demographics, most religious instruction is Islamic.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs, which advises the Education Ministry, is proposing that religious education be increased to four hours a week from two. It will remain a compulsory subject, along with mathematics, arts and crafts, physical education, Indonesian language and civics.

Just days after the ministry went public with the draft, parents, civil society organizations and members of the teachers’ federation began an online petition calling the changes unfounded.

“Instead of improving the curriculum, these changes dismantle the existing curriculum and do not guarantee better education in Indonesia,” states the petition, which has received more than 780 signatures.

The proposal to eliminate dedicated science and social studies classes has led to an outcry among parents and educators who worry that it could lead to a dumbing down of the country and make it less competitive.

Indonesia, a vast archipelago with more than 240 million people, has one of Asia’s fastest growing economies. Its attempt to improve its manufacturing and service industries is tied to its efforts to produce more skilled workers. Officials in the trade and manpower ministries have urged more training in areas like computer science.

Critics say the proposed changes will take the country in the opposite direction.

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